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Megatron didn’t write war poetry.
He wrote poems about the war, of course. How could he not? The war was all-encompassing. Megatron spent every day immersed in it. He’d altered his own body for it, changing himself into a weapon more thoroughly than he had ever managed even in the pits. The war had seeped into his internal mechanisms and ran through his fuel lines and changed the very resonance of his spark.
And Megatron still wrote poetry, despite his efforts to the contrary. He composed poems like spilled fuel from a wound. And so he wrote about the war.
But he didn’t write war poetry.
Not proper war poetry, anyway. Not the way it was supposed to be written.
War poetry was propaganda. Glory to Cybertron on high, glory to the brave soldiers on the wing, and so on. All written with a rhythm one could lead a marching army to, written to be recited at the timbre of jet engines or roaring tanks.
The poetry Megatron wrote about the war was something else.
Oh, he could have written those kinds of things. He had the skill for it, the way with words, and the voice to recite them with if he’d desired. And he was no stranger to propaganda or half-truths or manipulating the people with carefully-worded speeches. He had no moral qualms about it, either. He’d committed far greater atrocities than that in the pursuit of his goals.
He’d even written a few things that could be considered such, early in the war. Back when he’d predicted a swifter victory. Back when he’d expected to hold onto some measure of ideological purity in the process.
Before Orion had become Prime. Before Simanzi.
Megatron had written verses about the war then. Verses that had been true poetry, inspirational and true at the same time.
The war had gotten uglier since then.
Megatron could still write war propaganda. He could still speak it, easily and well. And it still moved people, still stirred sparks, still inspired mechs he didn’t know to lay down their lives for the sake of his glorious cause.
But those words didn’t come in the form of verse.
He’d tried. They tasted sour in his mouth. Trying to force them was like pushing a joint too far in a way it wouldn’t bend.
He could lie. But he couldn’t stomach telling such lies with poetry.